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Social Justice at UU Berks
The SJT is looking for new members. If you have an interest in social justice and want to make a difference join us. please contact Michael Szajna at miszaj@verizon.net
Berks UU joins Family Promise
We'll host first homeless families Thanksgiving week
WE DID IT ! so WE WILL DO IT !
We are proud to say that enough volunteers signed up to stay overnight at the church with homeless families in the Family Promise program. So First UU Church will indeed host families during the week of Nov. 21- 28, 2010. What better way to live in gratitude than sharing your time that week?
We now need six people to be a Morning Host, helping set out breakfast foods, make lunches and straighten up from 6- 7:30 am . We also need 14 Dinner Preparers, seven to make an entree and seven to make a side.
Look for green forms in a box on the sign-up table in the Gerber Room. These forms list all the roles you can play. You can also call or email me, Carla Mannix with your choices. All volunteers will receive a sensitivity training in the Fall. In the meantime, we will be collecting 20 twin sheet sets. If you see some on sale, please donate a set or two.
Family Promise of Berks County runs the program where homeless families live and train at a Day Center during the day, and then eat and sleep in various host churches for one week at a time until they have saved enough money to secure their own housing.
Last month, I visited a host church and met a young mother with her four children. She and her husband, who works second shift, had been in the program for just two weeks. The children heartily ate their lasagna and salad, while we chatted about news, neighborhoods, schools, and her hopes of getting into subsidized housing. Their beds were set up in an upstairs Sunday School room. "The mornings are pretty hectic. The van is here at 7 am. But it's been good to get us in more of a routine," she explained, describing one of the benefits of the program. To see more of how the program works, please view the seven-minute video at http://www.familypromise.org/ihn-video.